JUNE 9, 2020 – Yesterday I read about “the cop’s” first court appearance. Upon seeing his lawyer’s name—Eric Nelson—I thought, “Here we go again!”
I just can’t get away from Nelson—or from the other downtown Minneapolis lawyer, Eric Nilssen—who . . . get this . . . is the new Minneapolis City Attorney.
These incompetent imposters—they can’t even spell my last name correctly—have created trouble before. Whenever they resurface, I gird myself.
Take, for example, when Eric Nelson gained notoriety by representing someone accused of an egregious crime. Non-lawyers asked me how in the world I could represent someone who was so “obviously guilty.” After setting these people straight about the correct spelling of “Nilsson,” I felt duty-bound to mention “due process”; that everyone is entitled to a lawyer (albeit not an imposter!) and is presumed innocent until proven guilty.
The other imposter brought me greater grief. I had an Iraqi immigrant client who owned a corner store in a depressed part of Minneapolis. He’d come under city fire for multiple building code infractions. The case went to trial and opposing me was Assistant City Attorney . . . Eric Nilssen. After a hard-fought contest, the winning lawyer was the one who couldn’t spell his name correctly. A lawyer back in my office tried to console me with humor. “Well,” he said, “at least one of yourselves won!”
But that wasn’t the worst of it. Soon thereafter, I was having lunch with a client. Seated near by were two characters I didn’t recognize. Suddenly, one of them excoriated my namesake.
“Oh, I think Eric Nilssen is a horrible lawyer,” said the guy. “Plus, he’s impossible to deal with; you can’t trust him.” From prior snippets of their conversation, I knew it was Nilssen, not Nelson, since they’d been talking about building issues—Nilssen’s bailiwick, not Nelson’s.
My client dropped his burger. “Is he talking about you?”
“Yes and no,” I said, before explaining.
When Nilssen’s promotion earlier this year hit the news, I received numerous congratulations. Call it my 15 seconds of fame times all the friends and acquaintances I learned couldn’t spell my name.
The most inconvenient mix-up occurred the day I moved into new space in a downtown Minneapolis office building. Brand-new furniture was to be delivered at 10. When 10 turned to 11 without furniture, I called the store.
“We were there at 10,” the manager said, “but your building supervisor told us you’d moved out.”
“How could that possibly be?” I said. “I’m moving in, not out.”
Upon inquiry I learned that Eric Nelson had moved out of the building the day before. The building manager hadn’t been informed that I was moving in, so as far as he was concerned, the furniture delivery crew had the right guy, wrong building.
Nilsson, by the way (“son of Nils”; in Norwegian, “son” is “sen”; “Nelson” is Anglicized), is the seventh most common family name in Sweden. When it comes to spelling it true to its origins, I’m your man . . . if not your lawyer.
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© 2020 by Eric Nilsson
